


Lonely Too Long

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Ashes to Ashes [5]
Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Stargate Fusion, Body Horror, Character Death Fix, Comfort, Eye Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Mental Health Issues, Rescue, Treize Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:09:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23774380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: "The theories are scavengers found him, Treize Faction reps, old school OZ loyalists." He was struggling to think of OZ as old school, but time moved quickly. "It's where the nanite theory comes in. General Khushrenada was rumored to have been involved in some... war crimes against the colonies. L5. L2." Meredith was quiet for a moment, and then added, "But you already know that.""Yes." That was all he had to say, and he fiddled with the coffee, lifted to his mouth. Wufei was going to keep hold of himself. "L2 was by far the worst of it." OZ loyalists. He'd have to contact Sally. She'd gone in for the whole peacekeeping thing after the war, and he was certain she would be willing to give him information. "It's... I think it is actually him. He wouldn't have wanted to survive."
Relationships: Chang Wufei/Treize Khushrenada
Series: Ashes to Ashes [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711870
Kudos: 1





	Lonely Too Long

He had once watched a classic old, old movie that had involved a mad scientist and a robot going through a black hole. It crossed his mind occasionally, vividly hallucinogenic, one of the many things that bobbed up and down in his mind as he struggled to get his head above the sea of his existence. He was spaghetti, sliced and diced and reassembled, and then the nerve fire ebbed up, a rising tide that made him white out.

The room seemed to have light now, a cold distant window, but it roused him a little and he struggled to look around.

It was nothing but light and pale blue, he thought, with a quality something like that of the aurora borealis. Or maybe that was just him, the whole sparkly color. The world made no sense and he made no sense because he was fairly certain that he was supposed to be dead.

He vaguely remembered the sensation of dying, of so much pain that an end to it seemed exquisite, but... There had just been more pain and more pain. It seemed to have stopped for the moment, though his wrist was twitching strangely, spasmodically and of its own volition. "Hnn."

"There, there." The hand on his forehead felt good, cool against his skin. "You'll be fine, don't fret. I'll get you some more medication."

It wouldn't help. He knew it wouldn't help, but he wanted it so much.

It was endless. Endless, and if he thought about it he felt half hysterical just considering it, and he could barely pull together enough cognition to stave it off. "Wha..." His mouth was too dry, but he could make sounds. His voice was weak, but it sounded right, sounds, he had sound again. He'd heard another voice.

"I know. Just close your eyes. Close your eyes and you'll feel better when you wake up. I promise." It was so gentle, that touch, the voice. It wasn't the voice he wanted, he didn't think. He wasn't sure of anything.

"Huh." He was tired, and everything seemed to be burning again, and maybe closing his eyes -- eye? -- was all right.

Maybe everything was all right so long as he couldn't actually think about it.

* * *

There were mumblings this time. Things he could hear, and when he opened his eyes, the sparkling northern lights were not in effect. Mostly there was pain, an endless burning nerves nightmare, and he was fairly certain that he was crying.

He wished he wasn't awake. But he was, and he blinked, eyes wet, sore, so much pain, and he managed to move a hand, trying to, he didn't know. Get attention? "No..."

"There, there, sweetheart." Not who he wanted, no. No, it was... it wasn't who he wanted, and he blinked open his eyes to a woman's face, bright blue eyes, strawberry blonde hair. Did he know her? It seemed like he should know her. "There, there." 

"Stop the..." Fuck, it hurt to talk, and that was novel, something he didn't remember before. Something he might not remember again, the way things were going. "Painkillers. The, they, stop them. Sw..."

"Shhh." But he needed to tell them. He needed them to stop, they were... something was...

* * *

Reaching up with one hand, Wufei shoved his glasses higher onto the bridge of his nose and scowled at the book he was reading. Maybe he should have gone back to maths, but literature had seemed like a much better idea at the time.

A number of things had seemed like a good idea at the time, he supposed. Usually, he was enjoying himself a good deal more. It was just that he despised American lit. That dystopia had fizzled itself out a good three centuries before Wufei was even a gleam in anyone's eye, so as a cultural oddity, it was bizarre to read, sometimes.

Seemingly no one had been happy there; it was a flaming misery, and yes, it had brought them OZ, which perhaps they all could have done without. That wasn't what he was reading, unfortunately. No, it was _The Last of the Mohicans_. He wanted to put out one of his eyes if only to make it stop. The only consolation was that at least it wasn't Nathaniel Hawthorne. If anyone had deserved to be buried with a mouth stuffed with garlic and a stake through the heart, it was Hawthorne. Wufei was reasonably certain that the bastard had been a psychic vampire who derived life and pleasure from the misery of anyone who read his stories. He wasn't sure anyone could actually be worse, although this was definitely close.

"Coffee! I have coffee, please stop making that face, is the book really that bad?" Meredith had only a vague and dismissive interest in Wufei's line of study; he was generally quite outwardly arrogant, but consistently thoughtful toward his 'people'.

Wufei quite liked that about him. Well. That and his really quite delightful ass.

A man had to have some vices.

"Yes," he decided, pushing it to the side. "I probably should have pursued higher degrees in my previous fields." Among other things. "But I thought I needed something quite different. And this is definitely that."

"But someone fights a fake bear. Does that help, or?" He settled in companionably across from Wufei, flipping open his datapad casually as he nudged coffee over to Wufei. "Don't judge me. My sister married a literature professor, and I try to make small talk with him." New Canada had taken over for that whole mess because after the Upper Grey State had finally crossed Lake Erie and seized New York, the remnants of the American government had quickly capitulated to their new overlords.

Meredith had told him that his parents owned a tree farm in what had once been Oh-hio.

"I'm judging you," Wufei replied, voice bland and flat. "I am judging that you have read this and considered a fight with a fake bear to be something that is entirely acceptable. Or memorable." He picked up the cup and hummed as he drank. "Caramel. Thanks."

"It's the best and dumbest part. These are supposed to be... real outdoors people, and they mistake a dude in a bad taxidermy skin for a real thing?" Meredith shook his head. "Bears are huge and scary and reek so there's just no way."

There was no helping the grin that broke over his face. "We have arguments in class about the period between things like that and utter overwhelming realism. I have to say, the realism does in fact work significantly better for me."

"You want to read loving descriptions of an elevator chain creaking," he accused mockingly. The datapad beeped at him, but he didn't look at it yet. "I know the stuff you keep under your bed."

Leaning back in his chair, Wufei smirked. "Who'd know better than you what's under there? After all." He laid down the book and tilted his head to the side. He knew full well that there was a bruise there, one that Meredith had left two days ago. A few more besides that. They took turns since both of them had preferences.

He chuckled and turned a delightful shade of pink, which still stunned Wufei. The man was a pervert who could still feel embarrassment, a rare delight. "After all. So your day's been good except for that book?"

Overall, he thought it had been. "Mmmm. We're also doing a run on gothic literature in the other class, which is a great deal more enjoyable, I must say. How's yours been?"

"My brain hurts. We're playing with pretty simple nanites examples in the lab, which inevitably devolves into a cross between a political discussion and conspiracy theories when I just want to test the material strength of various metals in miniature."

Maybe he should say something about the nanites, but... it was probably for the best that he didn't. Meredith would either freak out because they were together or freak out because he had access to Wufei's nanites or... Well. There would be something of a freak out, either way. "Politically speaking, we should add the use of nanites to the Hague Accords."

"Not that Romefeller gave a flying twit about the Hague Accords, but probably. Still, for science, it could be..." He had a vague look on his face. "I mean, for medical alone, or deep space building! The lives that could be saved if it were used responsibly. Which is when we got into the conspiracy shit, and now Raigher keeps sending me clips." His datapad beeped again, and he made an angry gesture at it, without opening it. "So maybe lab will have a new topic to argue over next week."

That caught his attention. "Conspiracy theories are bullshit anyway." Usually told by people who had far too much time on their hands, in Wufei's experience. Then again, he'd been part of one hell of a conspiracy in his time, so perhaps he should reconsider his stance on them.

"He's a fan of _The Alliance Specials used mind control nanites illegally in war_ conspiracy, which then further devolves into cryptid-style videos proving that General Khushrenada is still alive, and I... I mean, he's my lab partner, and I've been banned from calling him a fucking moron, but wow." He took an aggressive sip of his coffee. "I might graffiti it to his desk."

Wufei's breath stopped.

It literally stopped, and for a second he wasn't sure that it would start again. When it did, it gusted out painfully. "Khushrenada?" He was certain that his voice was even.

At least it didn't crack.

"Mmm, supposedly in crazy conspiracy land he's in a hospital bed done up like a mummy and alive. Never mind that his Gundam exploded. First rumor that was going around was that somehow it was faked? But now it seems to be lifesaving nanites. The man still has a fucking cult. It's insane. It's like he was Napoleon or, or... Eisenhower."

He was out of his chair and kneeling beside Meredith's before he was even aware of it. "Show me." He undoubtedly sounded unhinged. "Of course he has a cult, do you have any idea how insanely charismatic he was?" And fucking incredible in bed.

"Were you in the war?" He hadn't probed Wufei hard about it because it was impolite, and even if people hadn't been in it someone in the family probably had been because it had swallowed vast resources and spanned every country in rounds of power consolidations that retrospectively had been useless and insane. 

Even as he asked it, he opened up his datapad for Wufei.

"Yes." His voice was shaky and a little raw. He couldn't help it. "I. I knew him. Personally, I mean, I..." He _knew_ him, and he watched Meredith's fingers flip through screens and commands until he reached the right one.

Meredith cut him an oddly hard look, as though a thing like that wasn't possible at all, that he'd never meet someone who'd known General Khushrenada personally. At the same time, it was an elite university and expensive, so... "Then you'll know this is an obvious fake," he shrugged, turning it to Wufei and hitting the play button.

He thought his heart was going to jump out of his chest. The room was dimly lit, and it was clearly being filmed surreptitiously, under someone's arm or stuck to a bag. It was a hospital set up in a normal room; a hospital bed and IVs and machines, and a bandaged figure in the bed, sheets up to his chest. Half his face was bandaged, and the other half was serene, surreal, undamaged. It looked like his hair had been shorn and was growing back with more grey. Meredith had paused it at the 'good' part of the shot.

That face.

Oh god.

He had never thought he'd see it again, and the shot was terrible, the video was nowhere near close enough and he couldn't guarantee anything at all. He... The Gundam he had been piloting had exploded. It _had_ , Wufei knew, because he had been the one who'd done it. Treize had pulled the beam sword loose, had come at him, and the trident thrust had been pure instinct. His face had been wet when the explosion happened, and it was wet now as he stared down at that stilled screen because he couldn't be sure. He couldn't, but it felt like part of him was crumbling.

If he were alive somewhere, if... what did he do? Did he do anything? He'd killed Treize himself, did he deserve to do anything if someone had found him and was giving him medical care? 

Meredith's hand hesitated over the datapad. "Hey?"

"What?" His voice sounded weird, and everything around him felt strange, two steps removed from right in a way that he hadn't felt since he'd declined the invitation to be a part of the cleanup following the war, since he'd gone off to be on his own.

Since he'd gone to rejoin society. To be a person, to live.

"You think it's him." It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and Meredith looked worried. "Okay, uh... there's a couple of them, let's, lemme find another, it might've had a better shot or. I don't know, resolution..."

"I killed him." It was a whisper, it was a breath, it was a curse. "I didn't want to. I didn't mean to, he, he, he..."

"Okay, you... okay." Meredith was staring at him while closing the video and then he was digging through files again, moving his chair closer to slide an arm over his shoulders. "Holy shit, holy shit, I think my brain is melting, you were a pilot?"

Wufei's brain was maybe melting a bit, too. He wondered vaguely if extraordinary shock overrode something in the nanite programming or if brains just... did that. "I shouldn't have said." He hadn't planned to say, but his brain was doing something strange and it seemed to have loosened his grasp on his tongue. The arm was helpful, though. Warm and tight and Meredith pulled him in, pressing his generous expressive mouth to Wufei’s temple.

"No shit." He exhaled against Wufei's skin and was still for a moment before he seemed to focus again, looking for that file. "I just, maybe the less I know, huh?"

Maybe. Did it actually matter? They were all part of history now, designated by number instead of name. Very few people had actually known who they were. "You could figure it out," he finally said, the words like molasses on his tongue, slow and thick. "You know all you need to do it." Pilot 05, Chang Wufei. "The way his face curves. It. It looks so much like him."

Meredith brought up another video, and this one was clearer, circling around the bed; it showed a better view of the damage, if there could be such a thing as better. It was more obviously Treize now, and more obvious that his cheek was packed, and his eye was covered for a reason. Everything else was... right. Him.

"He does look like the datastreams from the speeches, but..."

Wufei thought he might vomit. He'd done that. He'd _done that_ , and someone else had obviously found him. One of the scavengers, maybe? "There was a transmission." Later. Later, and he had assumed that it had been Treize, that he had sent the thing and then died, but what if it hadn't been Treize at all? What if... "What are the theories?"

"Scavengers found him, Treize Faction reps, old school OZ loyalists." He was struggling to think of OZ as old school, but time moved quickly. "It's where the nanite theory comes in. General Khushrenada was rumored to have been involved in some... war crimes against the colonies. L5. L2." Meredith was quiet for a moment, and then added, "But you already know that."

"Yes." That was all he had to say, and he fiddled with the coffee, lifted to his mouth. He was going to keep hold of himself. "L2 was by far the worst of it." OZ loyalists. He'd have to contact Sally. She'd gone in for the whole peacekeeping thing after the war, and he was certain she would be willing to give him information. "It's... I think it is actually him. He wouldn't have wanted to survive."

It was an odd sentiment, but he was quite sure of it. Treize had been... He was sure a psychiatrist was better qualified, but Wufei had ruminated endlessly on what had happened. Not depressed but determined, perhaps psychotically set in his belief of what needed to occur. Wufei wasn't sure if it was ZERO that had done it or if the man had always been that way. "I. That doesn't make any sense. He died trying to defend Earth from..." Meredith didn't hesitate, but went quiet, like he was trying to examine his words. "White Fang? The colonies? The, I don't know."

"A madman." There was no better way to put that because that was the best description of Zechs Marquise in the end -- mad. "We were all mad then, I think." And thank god they were in the study room on the fourth floor where no one ever came. "By the end."

"But you killed him." Meredith was clearly trying to work through it in his head and the video was playing on a loop now, a loop that made his chest ache. There was sinew and tissue there. He was breathing and alive somewhere out in the world or the colonies, despite trying to use Wufei to commit suicide.

Carefully, his tongue darted out, moistened his lips. "Yes. It was... yes." It was unavoidable. He'd even had some idea of what was coming and that hadn't helped at all. His response to the rapid movement Treize had made was ingrained, a sharp and immediate thrust that he'd learned so long ago that he couldn't remember a time when he couldn't have done it.

It was too ingrained, and Treize had studied him -- knew him -- well enough to know he'd do it. Meredith closed the stream, and stayed where he was, close to Wufei. "I. What do you want to do?"

"Send me the streams. I, I know someone." He did, and he would do his best by it, but also...

Given a choice between Nathaniel Hawthorne and finding Treize Khushrenada, was there truly any choice at all?

"Okay." Meredith still seemed stunned but moved his arm off of Wufei's shoulders to lean forward and do just that, exactly what Wufei had requested. "Okay."

"I'm sorry." He didn't know what else to say except that. "Honestly. I'm... sorry."

Sorry because he didn't know what else to say but mostly sorry because he was going to walk away, and he'd have to figure out some way to explain it. Or something.

Meredith shook his head. "No, no, I mean it's completely crazy and the weirdest thing to ever follow a lab argument, but..." He looked at Wufei, weighing things, maybe, and then not saying them. Guessing and trying to fill in the blanks. "Sorry, I keep going in the same loop. Just, if you find him, drop me a note saying you're okay."

He should have known. Meredith was terrifyingly bright, and Wufei should have remembered that. Leaning in, he caught that expressive mouth in a kiss, soft and sweet and full of regret. "I'm sorry," he said again. "But I have to go. And I'll tell you I'm all right when I can."

"Okay. You've got the streams at your university account now. I'll make something up about you running after a family member." He gave Wufei a tight, forced smile.

It would have been worth staying with Meredith, he thought. He was kind and funny and short-tempered with the people who didn't matter to him. He was going to be brilliant, the kind of brilliant that would create things like ZERO on his own with nothing else to build on. The kind of person who would invent things and be entertaining, a partner. Well worth the keeping, more than worth it, and yet Wufei knew that he was going to chase after the ghost of Treize Khushrenada, and that he wouldn't regret it. "Thank you."

Now he just needed to find Sally Po and get started.

* * *

Nothing made sense.

He was on fire, and nothing made sense. He was aware of a bed, a railing that he'd clutched onto because it seemed the only solid thing he could find. He was aware that he had visitors, that there were people he couldn't remember, but there were people; people he hadn't been able to clear through the fog, and he knew it was a fog, but everything hurt, and sometimes it slid away in bright lights and an inability to breath, an awareness that he was struggling, and then the muddy familiar treacle slow feeling of the nanites taking over for something, fixing something, interfering. It was like the bad days after he'd broken atmo when that child assassin had shot a missile at his mech and he'd gone down all wrong, systems disabled.

Everything hurt and it hurt all the time. He remembered something else like that, a searing agony across his back and someone. Someone. Holding his hand? Or. No. No, he had no idea. It was too much, and periodically something about it lightened, got better, but then it was back to being doused in the screaming of his own nerves, shudders of neuralgia and a purely unrelenting incandescent sizzling that chased across and through him.

Everything was pain and nothing made sense.

* * *

The Earth Sphere Unified Nation was dedicated to pacifism with a worshipful mania that only made sense in the shadow of the Eve Wars. Gundams and all other forms of mecha around the world had been dismantled, and yet there had to be something of the old alliance still in place. It didn't make sense for it all to go away, and he'd been invited to 'join' them, which at the time hadn't seemed like a sensible decision at all.

It still seemed fairly stupid if anyone asked him, much like sending their mobile suits off to their proverbial fiery end. Nataku was safely tucked away on an old property that was fairly inaccessible for anyone who wasn't part of his clan. The only people other than his who might have been able to access it were the Joketsuzoku, and they had been much less fortunate than Wufei's people. Then again, powerful women were often significantly more feared by some than anything else, so their deaths at least were less ignominious than that of Wufei's family, his loved ones.

They all knew not to give up something that helped protect them. 

The ESUN would probably learn that lesson the hard way, but Wufei kept that thought to himself as he strode, escorted, through the hallways of what had been the Romefeller Headquarters, and once the seat of Relena's short lived reign. She was the Vice Foreign Minister now, settled between Earth and the colonies, and she seemed to be doing all right, Wufei supposed. She hadn't fucked anything up nearly so wildly as the rest of them had, he could say that much. Then again, given enough time... Well. There was no point in being pessimistic about it.

He was already sufficiently pessimistic about other things.

"Wufei!" Sally leaned back in her chair and waved him in, pointing to a seat across the way.

"Sally. It's nice to see you again."

"Have you come to take the job we offered?" She was probably hoping he was going to say yes, because that would be one less Gundam Pilot free and loose in the world, doing... whatever insanity she might be imagining.

He allowed his mouth to curl slightly as he settled into the indicated chair. "Given my own choices, I would be happily ensconced at university cursing the names of ancient poets and various other writers. Things have made that difficult to do. I thought coming to you would be the wisest course."

"What things?" She didn't seem to have any idea. That was rather uncomfortable to consider, because perhaps he really had lost his mind.

Reaching into a pocket, he pulled out the data chip and laid it on her desk. "Take a look at those. I've managed to enhance them somewhat, but..."

Sally raised an eyebrow at him but leaned forward to take it. She wasted some time inspecting the chip before putting it in a datapad that she pulled out of her desk drawer. Something firewalled then, something safe. "What is it?" she asked while apparently running scans on the files.

"Something that's impossible to miss once you see him. At least if you've ever seen him in person before, which I expect you have done." Maybe not quite as closely or as in person as he had, but all the same.

"Him?" She started the file up, and Wufei could see her reaction, could see it on her face as it unrolled. "Oh. General Khushrenada... How?"

Ah, that was the question. "You know about L5." Of course she knew. She was the one who had given orders that helped to keep their remaining presence, if not hidden, then at least not obvious. "And about L2. Different methods, admittedly, but he was... Is infected the appropriate word?" He wasn't sure, and he sighed. "He managed to get them reprogrammed. They're more like mine." That was a reluctant admittance. "Compatible with mine, in any case." For a second, he gnawed at his lower lip. "Mine are different. More for longevity and tissue repair, that sort of thing. The kind of thing that would take some of the bodily constraints required for piloting and loosen them a little. Make up for the strain, I expect."

"The medical staff quarantined him, and they had been planning to execute him to stop the risk of the nanites spreading. Because he was general Catalonia's nephew, the general stayed the execution long enough for him to prove that they wouldn't leave his body. I don't know how it went after that because he wasn't in a medical facility I was part of. Those files were later classified." She ran fingers over the screen. "Was he wearing a spacesuit?"

There was no stopping the huff of breath, bitter and a little hurt. "Do you expect as much from an idiot? No, he was determined to die. ZERO, well. Epyon System, more to the point, it was a bastardization of ZERO. Sort of. It... It showed you things. Which is one of the reasons it was best for the whole bloody thing to be destroyed. But he thought very much that he had to die. I received a transmission later on. I thought probably it was from him, although now I'm not so sure. He was wearing his uniform, all blue and bright gold braid."

"He wore it well." She moved around in the files. "Do you know if the cockpit was breached?"

Treize had worn everything (and nothing) quite well. "I couldn't say. By the time we were organized enough to check for survivors, scavengers had come in, and the explosion was catastrophic."

"Hmn." She was looking at it with a medical eye, not whatever eye he was giving. "Oxygen deprivation causes brain damage, which the nanites might have been triggered to overwrite. If they trigger to overwriting..." She shook her head. "I just don't know. He might be gone entirely."

The thought alone made him sick. "Even if he is, we can't leave whatever there is left of him like that."

"No, we can't. He might be held as a power symbol, there's..." Too much risk to have him out there even as a warm corpse, and they both knew it. The idea of him as a warm corpse was harrowing. "We have to consider him a hostage."

Wufei felt himself relax, hearing it not exactly surprising but a relief all the same. "I'm glad you agree with me." He paused, licked his upper lip. "I want to come along."

"I don't even know where we would be going." She looked up at him, weighing her words, and he knew what she was going to ask before she even said them. "Do you want to join us?"

Not really. He was afraid it would be more of the same, all shooting and fighting, and he wanted to be done with that. "Is it a requirement?"

"We're a peacekeeping organization." So no, it was not a requirement. But at least she wasn't going to lie to him, and he had always appreciated that about Sally. She was forthright.

"The thing about peacekeeping is that sometimes you have to fight to keep the peace." It was true, and they both well knew it. "I'm not sure how much fight I have left in me these days."

"Then come and help us investigate things that might disrupt the peace, and let others fight." She glanced down at the datapad again. "I know you came here looking for help. Resources."

"Treize Khushrenada." That was hands down the reason he was here, but yes. Help and resources. "Can I promise to think about it?"

The edge of her mouth tugged up in a wry expression, just for a moment, as she continued to watch the video. "Yes. Do you have the transmission you mentioned on this chip?"

"I've got everything I could dredge together. A friend happened to get into something of a discussion in a study lab and he shared the company of a conspiracy theorist. He sent me everything he could come up with." And would have held his hand if Wufei had asked.

He didn't dare let Meredith for fear of dragging him into the death and hell that might come with looking for Treize Khushrenada. She clicked a few things, tap tap tap, and then she was watching it. He knew it well, though it was upside down, and she did not turn up the sound, which was a blessing. "Did he send this to your Gundam during the fight?"

Wufei shook his head. "We didn't have that kind of transmission hardware. We were mostly working with audio transmissions, not video. That came to me afterwards."

"How. How. Did someone courier you a data chip? When did you receive it? This will help us track down what happened." She was watching it on loop as Treize's head threw back in a seizure of electricity; as it damaged his face, arced through his eye, and the seat back caught fire before it cut off in static.

"No." It might have been more easily understood if it had. "It showed up in a data transmission on one of the old servers that we were using. Bizarrely old school, but if he didn't upload it and set it to send, then I don't know who could have sent it outside of one of the five of us." Sally would know precisely who that meant.

"Did you leave log-ins on any datapads he had access to?" She was narrowing the list. "Tallgeese II was a rather rudimentary Gundam put together from spare parts, source unknown. If it were using spares from the original Tallgeese, it would have been natively compatible with that level technology. It also should have had a black box, which was underneath the pilot's seat." She stopped the video. "You see what I'm getting at. I don't know how he could survive without brain damage. A permanent seizure disorder, or... I'll see what paperwork might still exist on the original nanites."

Wufei was already shaking his head. "No, I." He didn't want to say anything more specific. "No." It felt ridiculous just to say it, to be so caught up with it all. "But he was ridiculous, and I don't doubt that he could have figured it out. And as I said, the programming for our nanites was compatible. I... don't think that information would have passed, but I can't guarantee it didn't.”

"What was released on L5 was so much more rudimentary than what you were... given. I don't think they would be capable. No, I was thinking... whoever found his body found the black box. He would have mostly remained strapped into the cockpit chair that had the black box. Perhaps it was sent to you to reel you in." She switched files, suddenly interested in something he was unsure if he wanted to know.

"How would they even know? You barely know," he pointed out. "And everyone else is dead. And if he's in that sort of condition, I doubt he's able to tell them."

"There were other people behind Operation Meteor than your doctors, Wufei. It was started over thirty years ago, from the documentation we've found. Someone from the first days of it would know. Perhaps these videos are bait for you, too. I have never seen them on the open network and the quality is... good."

"The quality is terrifying, more to the point. And the scientists working on Operation Meteor were in isolation for literal decades." He could feel his brows drawing together, and he leaned back in the chair, scowl firmly in place. "Well. It's no one from L5. Laoshi O is in the mountains in Qinghai, mostly isolated these days. He became used to it when we were finishing things before the war, and he likes his quiet. I can't imagine it's anyone from L4, either."

She moved between videos, frowning to herself. "Someone paid for them to live in isolation. Someone kept them well. Operation Meteor was not a force of will and brilliance alone. These videos are over a span of time. I can't say how long."

"It's been two and a half years since that battle." Maybe that long. Maybe shorter. Maybe they'd passed him from hand to hand for all he knew, and that idea left him sick to his core. "I'd say the most obvious suspects would be L3. At a guess. L5 is out, L4 isn't the kind of place he'd end up without it showing somehow. L2 still hasn't recovered from the last plague--" Which Wufei had always thought likely had a source similar enough to the disaster on L5. "--and L1 was never that kind of organized."

She turned the pad around and had set the videos to pause at full body shots of Treize in the bed. "They need your nanites. And I believe he had spent time in a hospital on L3 at some point." 

With the screenshots ordered like that, he could see what she was saying. The first picture seemed to be of mostly a torso, shoulders, arms, and head before the zoom in.

His face was... a mess. He couldn't see the worst of it, not even close, but Wufei could tell what it must look like under there from the burns that spread out from beneath the bandages. They looked more like what he would expect to see after the video transmission from the final fight, raw and exquisitely painful. It hurt him just to see it. "I'd give them. If they'd help."

"Do you have any data on how... good those nanites were?" It was a delicately asked question; it was a delicate topic. But he'd seen Treize's back, the fine white scar tissue that webbed over pale skin like cheesecloth. "I'll start with looking for leads at L3, if you'd like to in process downstairs.

"His were less effective than mine although he thought his were better. Originally. I don't know." His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, dry. "Mostly they seemed to run through local anesthetic and pain medications like they were water."

She grimaced at that. "I can't imagine. I just. Those nanites never should have been released." He was sure she'd said so before, over and over, but it didn't matter as he looked at the screenshots ordered by time as she'd manipulated them. In the more recent video, Treize had hips and legs again. Apparently, under the bedsheets.

Two and a half years.

Sally buzzed someone in on a data link to come get him, while she said, "I need to send a survey team to L5’s location. If, I just can't imagine." But clearly she was.

"I don't think it... I don't think he'll be there." There shouldn't be much of anything there, just debris and horror. Treize being there would be in line with those things, in any case. "You're right. It needs checking. But I don't think that you'll find anything."

"It needs checking because if those nanites could keep what should have been a mutilated corpse alive in the unprotected vacuum of space... I just worry." She cleared her throat as the door opened, and Noin leaned in.

"Sally, I'll take this one on myself. Let's get you computer access and into our system."

Well. Apparently the decision had been made. "Right. You'll let me know when the survey team is ready to go?" Wufei simultaneously wanted to be part of the expedition and didn't want to be. What he wanted didn't matter. He was going regardless.

"I believe you are correct about L3. Because of that I would like to send a different expedition to L5. Thank you, Noin."

Noin was all gentle smiles as he got up and headed toward her in the doorway. "How are you?"

"I've been better." Because that was true and because she would understand that if anyone would. She had been the one who had managed their release from captivity on the lunar base. Noin was smart and determined and resourceful, which was probably why she was working as a Preventer. "You?"

"It's been worse. We're mostly at peace. But busy." She led him toward an elevator and seemed relaxed as they walked. "Do you have lodging? Heero and Duo both lodge here for the moment."

Huh. He'd known they had both gone to work with them, of course; they kept up with one another, in any case, mostly because they were all dangerous and it was wisest to do so. "No, I haven't made arrangements as yet. I packed up anything I didn't need immediately and left it in storage."

"So you need a place to stay," she guessed, looking over at him as they boarded the elevator. "Most of us stay here right now."

"I need a lot of things," Wufei muttered. "Mostly I need to get started looking for the answer to this disaster. I take it she messaged you before she got busy with comparison shots of the videos."

"Oh, I saw you coming in through the security video." She seemed pleased with herself at that. "What videos?"

Hell. "A friend of mine sent me some videos. I decided the best thing would be to bring them here." That was sufficient in Wufei's opinion, at least until Sally decided what should be told to whom.

Noin lifted an eyebrow but didn't press; the elevator eventually stopped somewhere below basement level and they stepped out into a vast data center filled with screens. "There's paperwork, of course."

"Of course." And if he sighed, well.

Who could blame him?

* * *

Everything looked disturbingly normal which, in Wufei's opinion, was a sign that it was anything but. He'd put it forth as a vacation, research for a thesis he had never planned to write in the first place. Even going back to school was just to give him something to do, an opportunity to decide what he wanted out of the world. This felt a great deal more like what he'd been looking for, which he found simultaneously soothing and annoying.

L3 was full of a number of old school writers, but it was also a strange balance between agriculture and industry with tons of imported soil and well-organized tiered growth of a number of diverse crops. It had leant a certain odd flavor to their literature over the years which made for interesting reading. There was a tension in the works that came out of L3, a struggle between manufacturing and bucolic yearning which often settled itself with bouts of excessive violence, both on the written page and the landscape of the colony, and on Earth before then. It made sense somehow that Trowa had come from there, nameless, skilled, ready.

Other things made less sense.

There was a bizarre division in fashion sense, for one, which showed that the bizarre literary dichotomy was also an everyday sort of difference. Some of them looked as though they belonged in paintings from the pre-colony eighteenth century, and some of them would have fit in perfectly in any science fiction novel of the modern era. It was quite obvious that they were comfortable enough with it, because none of the people following him had bothered to change between their clothing of choice. That left him to assume that it was a colony-wide issue as opposed to any sort of faction between the one or the other.

Probably. Maybe. Maybe he saw it that way because he didn't live on L3 and hadn't been raised there.

It was unsettling, but he tried not to show it as he rented a small apartment, appropriate for his means. Settled into a sort of life, a researcher's life in a colony where he did not belong. His main interests were confirming the existence of the sites that had been pointed out to him by intel. In the capital, there seemed to be a hospital, an equipment depot, a city hall, ships, and everything one would need to foment a revolt, if he thought about it. There were Bartons there. Actual Bartons as opposed to Trowa, who had taken the name when he left the colony.

There were some things which they had learned about one another over the years. After all, no one could understand any of them better than one another, although he supposed some of those things would always be confusing to someone else. That was the nature of humans, Wufei was sure. Just as he was sure that the actual Bartons were going to make a play for him eventually.

They were the richest family on the most well-built cluster of the colony; if they had Treize there, there was no way that it wasn't the Bartons who had him. There had been rumors, collected in the Preventer archives that Dekim Barton had been behind the assassination of Heero Yuy while serving as the man's aide. In the clean-up, he had potentially overseen the assassinations of no less than eight more powerful politicians with great followings, including an uncle of Quatre, Ein Yuy, and eventually Treize’s younger half-brother who had gone the Relena route of early entry into politics rather than early entry into war. And his mother. It was rather a miracle that Dorothy was still alive, given the grudge the Barton family seemed to hold. Then again, Wufei was uncertain as to whether he'd be willing to take her on so he supposed he couldn't blame them. Hell, he was fairly certain an entire battalion wouldn't try her if they were wise. As he was fortunate enough not to be related to Treize's family or any other politicians, Wufei decided that the best way to proceed would be to continue with his planned research and see how long it took them to make contact or if they would at all.

Despite Noin's bet that it would take two weeks, it took inside of five days, while he sat at a lovely outside cafe with a hunk of bread and a strange squash soup that made his nose tingle while simultaneously not being spicy enough for his tastes. 

The man was dressed as a casual passerby, and he was tall with grizzled sandy hair, his bearing undeniably military. "Hello. Are you new in town?"

Wufei didn't bother looking around to be sure it was him the man was addressing. "Hm, yes. Quite. How could you tell?" If that were a bit sarcastic, well. Everyone on L3 seemed to be quite European. He did stand out a bit.

The man smiled, an expression that didn't reach his eyes. He pulled the chair out across from Wufei, and invited himself to sit down, which wasn't a good start. "You've sparked a great deal of curiosity in town, pilot."

He went tense, his face hardening. "I'm not a pilot anymore."

"No? Ah yes, you travelled here without your Gundam, on a civilian transport. That leaves you at a loose end, but we're curious. Why did you come all the way to X18999?"

No point in fucking around with formalities, then. "I was interested in some of your litterateurs. As I'm no longer a fighter, I thought that I might find my way to something more peaceful. So now that I've explained my presence, why don't you explain yours." 

The man leaned back in the chair, considering him. Inspecting him, Wufei knew, and gauged what to say next, where to take the conversation so it would yield what he sought. "The colonies still seek freedom. You pilots did not succeed in your task. OZ destroyed your colony. And yet you came for him. I can't make sense of you."

There was no stopping the sharp breath that he drew nor the tension that made him stiffen, made his jaw clench. "There's been enough death. For me and for everyone else. That's all the sense you need to make of me."

"Come to finish him off? Was one revenge not enough?" The man was getting glee out of getting a rise off of him.

That was good enough then. "That fight was patently wrong. It wasn't a true fight. He sacrificed himself, I didn't kill him." Let him interpret that how he liked.

He snorted as if it confirmed something for him. Excellent, an idiot, then. "I'm Colonel Kirill. While he's not yet in any state for a fair fight, he will be eventually. If that's what you've come here for."

"I doubt you truly understand precisely what I've come for. Or that you ever will." And that was true enough, too. He wanted a lot more than a fair fight. He never wanted to fight again, to be perfectly honest. "What should make me believe that it's even him? Hm?"

"You'll have to check for yourself. But the video caught your interest, didn't it?" Bait and hook, yes, just as they wanted with an obviousness that bordered on painful to him. "I'll wait for you to finish your supper; then come with me."

Leaning back, Wufei raised an eyebrow. "And presumably I should follow you with no guarantees, no advising anyone of where I'm going? It sounds quite a bit more as though I will end up murdered by all rights. That is how these stories usually end."

"Indeed. There will also be no further contact with the outside world in case you are a traitor to the colonies," the man agreed, leaning forward to take his bread and rip a piece off of it. "This is your one chance. You came because of the videos. If you want to see General Khushrenada, these are the rules."

He pretended to consider that quite seriously as if they had not already made serious considerations about that possibility. Hopefully, if he should die, the subspace beacon they'd placed would activate at the appropriate time and they would at least find his body. "Fine." Wufei laid down his spoon and rose. "Let's go then."

The man stood up, tall and intimidating, looking grim and pleased with it himself all at the same time. "What type of peace do you expect to gain from this?"

Towering over Wufei wasn't going to change anything, and it certainly wasn't going to make him feel inferior. Wufei was fairly certain he could kill the man with a flick of his fingers given the opportunity. "At this point, I'll settle for peace within myself. If peace and justice for the colonies come along with that, who am I to argue?"

"A flexible attitude. We can work with that." He strode off toward a vehicle on the other side of the street, expecting Wufei to follow with his heart in his throat and his chest hammering.

He'd probably be reasonably disappointed if Wufei weren't a little rattled and nervous. Whatever the case, he might as well give him as much, but he set his jaw and followed, taking two steps for every one of the other man's. Bloody giant. The fact that he was short hadn't been that much of a hardship on his colony, or even with the other pilots. They'd doubtless all been chosen for their stature; less room for the pilot meant more room for weaponry and better designs. There had been more room in Trowa's Gundam than any of the others, as it hadn't been designed for him specifically. Of course, it had been a bit more primitive than the rest of them for it, Wufei thought, as his had relied heavily on actual physical bullets and the others had already possessed beam weapons and more advanced weaponry. L3 had been the first, though, the seat of the rebellion, and Wufei was assembling thoughts in his head, getting an idea of what was going on there and still would be. "There is no turning back, if you come," the man warned one more time, opening the driver’s side door.

Wufei knew his gaze was flat, unimpressed. That look usually got people to back away from him, but this man just stood in the space between the door and the seat and stared back at him. "I'm not known for changing my mind that often."

"You're an odd man," the officer declared, smiling tightly at him, and then moving. "Perhaps if you fail as a soldier you can serve as a nursemaid. Get in."

The vehicle was small, more suitable for someone of his size than the man behind the wheel, and something about the way that he had to fold himself into it made him feel satisfied. It was mean and he enjoyed it. "I don't think you should worry about my potential failure in that regard." He was able to lounge in it, while the man continued to wear that grim smile and put the vehicle into gear. 

The view was not entirely off putting. The sky, such as it was, was blue and bright, and the wheat and grass seemed to be growing well under the light of artifice that filled all the colonies. It seemed peaceful, normal, and Wufei was absolutely certain it was a wretched lie of epic proportion.

The man drove through a number of streets that were perhaps the colony's equivalent of rural life -- tiers and steppes full of plants, a few barns with chickens and other birds that were much easier to justify when living on a colony than anything else could be. The only surprise was when he pulled into a driveway lined with legumes and drove directly into the barn there. Either he was about to die, or they were so utterly unoriginal that they had an underground bunker. He was betting it would be a giant cliché either way.

Perhaps there would even be chickens fitted with laser beams.

It was actually an underground bunker; the walls were narrow, close to the sides of the vehicle even as small as it was, and then it widened into a broad cavern. It was no wonder the L3 cluster said they were always running out of money. Apparently they'd been watching old Earth spy films and decided that was the best use of their time and money.

He had to work to keep his face neutral because this was such preposterous overkill. It was far past ridiculous, and Wufei managed to draw in a deep breath as they rolled to a stop and were met by a handful of soldiers who looked like escapees from a scouting group of some variety. In shorts. Perhaps there was an airflow problem down there. He pondered that as the colonel got out of the car and gestured for them to go ahead of them. "Follow me, pilot."

Apparently they weren't going to bother with his name. It was probably some attempt to pigeonhole him and undermine his confidence in himself. That might have worked when he was sixteen, but at nigh on thirty-three, Wufei was quite well settled into knowing precisely how much he was worth.

The tunnels that branched off of the main cavern were just as convoluted as one might expect in Wufei's opinion. They crossed over one another and went round in wandering paths, and he was reasonably certain that they were marching their short-clad Scouts in circles as well to make themselves look impressive as well. Mostly because he'd seen the same redhead thrice now. It wasn't a good look if they were trying to make an impression on him. "I had tried to argue that there should be some tests you complete, that you earn it. I did not win that argument."

"If you want to see me kick multiple asses and prove that I can outfight all of you, then we can certainly do that. If you need me to prove that I'm smarter than most of you, I can do that, too." It was an offhand offer, because if nothing else, he was fairly certain that was precisely what a man like this would be expecting.

"It feels too much like rewarding you for transgressive behavior." He turned toward a door with a swipe badge, which beeped for him. That was annoying, and rudimentary.

He managed not to laugh, just barely. He couldn't imagine precisely which behavior he considered transgressive -- waging war, fucking people only when he liked them and not giving a damn about their gender, abandoning fighting for peace and study? It could be any of them, he supposed, and so he simply shrugged. "Your call."

"Lucky you, not my call at all," Kirill pronounced crisply, and pushed the door open. The hallway seemed to be a medical facility, and there seemed to be a glassed-in guard window where the colonel stopped and inspected a list of people who had signed in. "Huh."

"You seem surprised by something." His heart was beating rather more quickly than he would have liked. The idea that Treize might be here, might be close, was painfully unbearable. It was always entirely possible that they had faked the entire thing, but Wufei didn't think so. Not at all.

"The daughter's been down here again." He had something of a long-suffering look, and why was he telling Wufei this? Because he wasn't going to be leaving. "She fudges the logbooks, but the handwriting is a giveaway. Come, through here."

...daughter?

His eyebrow raised, Wufei stepped behind him, the hair on the nape of his neck prickling at leaving the guard behind him. Who knew exactly what they had planned, but he was still confident he could take them both. He was a bit more worried there might be more of them.

And he was definitely curious about whose daughter he meant.

Any additional elaboration didn't seem to be forthcoming, and he stopped at another door and swiped in.

It was like slowly stepping into that video clip, only it was real and there was sound. There was a sound of some sort of machine humming, blood pressure cuff, pulse, soft intrusive noises. Treize was propped up in the bed, sitting upright, and there was no denying it was him, even with his eyes closed.

Wufei's chest tightened, his pulse rising sharply, and he took in a breath, one that was too shallow, before he managed a deeper one. Anyone could come up with a reasonable facsimile of someone, and he reminded himself of that. Surgery was a possibility, God knows what else. "Well. He certainly looks like him."

"If you'd been here two years ago, you would've seen considerably less of him." It sounded smug or tired, Wufei didn't know, and he was trying not to move in a rush. It was absurd. The Treize Facsimile stirred as if the noise seemed interesting. A hand moved a little, an unsteady motion of clutching at the bar that ran along the side of the bed. "I thought we'd be trying to keep that torso thing alive for, fuck, insane reasons, but Barton said the man had a secret."

"A secret." Wufei scoffed, head tilted to the side. "He had dozens of those." Not the least of which were the nanites infecting him. The fact that the colonel had said _torso thing_ was... to say the least, horrifying. More than, and it made him a bit sick at the core.

He wondered if his own nanites were that efficient.

"The first of which is that his legs grew back." He watched, still standing back from the bed, as Treize shuddered, and seemed to disjointedly crack his eyes open. 

"Hmn?"

"I'll get the nurse in." The man turned away, back to the door, and Wufei wasn't sure what to say or where to start, particularly since he also had no desire to end up dead.

Licking his lips, he stepped closer to the bed. "Treize Khushrenada."

He clutched harder at the railing, and his eyes seemed to focus finally. "You." Wufei imagined a tone of relief in his voice, he was sure of it. It sounded like him. It sounded just like him.

"Me," Wufei murmured, looking into those eyes, the blue flecked with cornflower and grey infinitely familiar. If they'd faked it, they'd done a very good job indeed. "How are you feeling?"

His hand was white knuckled on the railing and he blinked, focusing on Wufei's face with interest. "Stop the painkillers. Please..."

Oh. _Oh_ , and Wufei reached out, found the line for the IV, and looked closely at it. "It's just saline right now. They're probably coming to inject it into the port so that it goes directly into your veins, most likely on a schedule. I won't be able to stay round the clock. I'm here to fight, I expect."

"Where?" There was a hungry interest for information in his eyes, and that seemed like Treize. He didn't seem brain damaged, not... Wufei didn't know. He wasn't sure. He hoped to god they managed to get the time to figure it out.

"L3. I'm not sure where, precisely." If they didn't want him to know any of it, they'd drug it out of him. "Or what they've planned for you. Apparently you were a torso and not much else when you arrived. One presumes you had a head or likely the rest wouldn't have..."

He closed his eyes, swallowed, and then looked at Wufei again. "Hasn't been good. We need to go..."

He wasn’t sure if it was the cadence of his words, or the tone, but Wufei knew. It was him. 

Dear god, it _was_ him, and Wufei felt the shudder run down his spine. "Shhh. Shhh." What else could he do? Anything he said would give them too many opportunities to kill him and leave him for dead. "Rest now."

"Tired of resting." He tried to move, one sided. The left side of his body, the side that had taken most of the electric shock, the same side with the IV port, seemed to be less responsive. "'s torture."

"I know." He wanted to lean down, kiss his forehead. Give him comfort, get him to some kind of hospital where they could figure out what the fuck was wrong and fix it, or at least get him free of the pain medication since that was obviously hurting him or he wouldn't have asked about it. "But the best thing for now is to rest." And let him figure out what was going on here.

He seemed to accept that, and closed his eyes, eyes wet now. "There's... a girl sometimes. Nothing makes sense."

Very likely it didn't, particularly if he'd been rebuilt head and all. He sincerely hoped it didn't. Wufei also hoped to god that he didn't remember any of this, either. "They're watching." He breathed it, barely aloud, lips not moving. "Rest now," he murmured again, louder.

His mouth flattened into a tight line of misery, but he didn't say anything else. The man had secrets, secrets they wanted to find out, secrets they probably thought Wufei could elicit perhaps, or... or he didn't know. He didn't know, and he was going to find out. It just might take time, which was unacceptable. 

The door hissed open again behind him and Wufei looked up, turning his head to see who it was. Kirill looked far too pleased with himself. "Presumably you're going to make me some sort of offer."

"I am." He lifted his eyebrows at Wufei, looking pleased with himself, hands tucked behind his back. "And since you're so bright, perhaps you can suggest what it might be?"

"You'll give me him in exchange for whatever it is you want." Any idiot could see that coming, he was fairly sure. "For whatever reason I might want him, presumably."

"You _are_ bright. What do you think we want from you?" Now that he looked, he could see symbolism on the guard's uniform, a squiggle with an eagle in it. Something stylized and interesting. Something he hadn't seen before, and it made him think of White Fang.

"I think you want me to fight for you, and that whatever your plans might have been before Operation Meteor commenced, they're back in play again." And probably something extraordinarily stupid. All of this was so puerile, the sort of thing that might have been hatched in the imagination of a child.

Except he knew quite well that it came from the mind of a grown adult, and it had all started before he'd been born. "We will be making public moves soon, and while we have compelling leadership, the presence of a Gundam Pilot in the ranks, even nominally, would rally colonies around us intensely."

"How did you know?" The question was a drawl, and Wufei picked up Treize's hand, laced his fingers together and held it. "What it would take to convince me?"

Treize's hand clutched back tightly, a relief. "Pure happenstance. We acquired the general out of another interest, and it was brought to our attention that there might be a use for General Khushrenada."

Wufei rolled his eyes back to scowl at Kirill. "That doesn't answer the question. I assume you've got appropriate meetings planned to tell me precisely what your expectations might be. I also expect you won't take any of my decisions about what to do in this room into consideration."

"Let us call it simple behavioral reinforcement. You play along well, and we will take your suggestions into account. Clear and obvious, no?" Carrot and stick, but Wufei knew how to work within a system.

The hum of his voice was soft, steady. "Fine then." As if he would have said anything else. They would have been watching him, and obviously they well knew that he had been to Preventers HQ. They'd keep watching him, too. Hell, they'd probably hacked into the computers looking for whatever they might find on him, just to check whether or not he might have enlisted in their peacekeeping efforts.

He was working without a net, and that was just fine. "Good. The nurse will be in to change the bandages, and perhaps we will see what happens after a night without painkillers. Come with me."

"I'll be back soon," Wufei promised, and rose. He could feel the way that Treize's fingers tightened on his own, and he didn't want to go. He wanted to stay right where he was, but he didn't have much of a choice.

Treize let go, and Wufei stepped forward to follow after the colonel; back out through the door, a keycard swipe to get out again. He was going to need to acquire a keycard posthaste. The likelihood of getting a message out was slim and none, but that was fine. If he didn't contact anyone, then they would send in backup, someone who might know more about the situation than he did going into it.

There was nothing to do but wait and see.

* * *

He had been measured and fitted for one of those moronic uniforms and quite firmly told that his job was one of public relations. He was to be seen, to be known, even without his Gundam, the implication and the whisper net would have the power and pull they wanted. The radicals they had been unable to lure to the Mariemaia Army would come because of Wufei. So the entire L3 plan continued to be something out of the imagination of a child and he was not surprised. He was, however, annoyed about the ridiculous shorts. If his eyes rolled any harder, Wufei was fairly certain that his eyes would roll out of his head and fall onto the floor to clatter away in annoyance. Then he was put into his uniform despite being a man who was reluctant to wear shorts on a hot day at the equator, and accompanied his captors to what seemed to be a well appointed drawing room which was already occupied by an old man in a hat and a young girl who seemed to be playing with books.

"Good afternoon." The old man's voice was a bit quavery and his hands were shaking. Wufei would judge him to be in his sixties, probably; certainly not old enough to sound quite like that.

"I'm sure it is," Wufei replied.

He had caught the girl's attention because she looked up at him with a serious expression, and those eyes were remarkable. "Are you the Gundam pilot who regrets betraying us?"

"Betraying you..." Wufei drawled, low and slow. He knew those eyes. He knew them well, and he was certainly surprised to see them in her face. He hoped he didn't show exactly how much. "I am the pilot from L5 designated as 05."

"I know." She seemed pleased to see him, in an odd way. The old man was watching them both silently as if enjoying a show. "You injured my father."

"Your father felt that his death was the only way for everything to end the way he wanted. Unfortunately, that meant sacrificing himself upon my proverbial sword." He'd tortured himself over it often enough that saying it wasn't problematic.

Wufei even managed to say it without a hint of emotion in his voice. "Why don't you sit down and have a drink, Chang Wufei. Welcome to our family."

He'd bet no one would be saying that later. Just as a consideration. "Thank you." Settling in, he took the cup and saucer when it was offered and drank from it without pausing. Either they would poison him or they wouldn't, and at this point it was quite obvious that he was in as deep as he was likely to be.

He was part of the 'family', and that was ominous because family clearly meant hostage. But the man seemed pleased, and slowly took an unsteady drink from his own cup. "Mariemaia here is quite fond of her father, and what he wanted for the Earth Sphere."

"He said he wanted to thank you," she agreed solemnly, peeking over at him from her book, again.

"I suppose he might. It was not, to be honest, what I would have preferred to happen. Your father is very good at getting what he wants." They'd fight about that later, no doubt, loudly and vehemently if arguments with Treize proved to be the same now as they had been three years ago. He couldn't know as yet.

The only thing Wufei was sure of was that it was the same man and that he was mentally present. At least part of him was, enough to make it worthwhile to stay and work through the situation. He wasn't just a breathing corpse to be tidied off. "Then you and I will have to work together to make sure he gets what he wants. Grandfather says--"

"Ah, ah." This must have been a frequent correction.

" _I_ will bring about a correct peace between Earth and the colonies, with the colonies given their rightful place at the tables."

Wufei wondered if the old man were purposely making the entire plot childlike as a front, but he didn't feel that the man was that bright. They'd have to see. "Hm. With you at the head of the table, I suppose."

"Yes." She was very clear, and concise, but she was young and her voice was soft. Very young, perhaps somewhere under ten. He didn't know enough to lay out a timeline. "We have been denied for long enough. Father had wanted you pilots to win, and I will see that it is done."

"We did win," Wufei pointed out quietly, lifting the cup to his lips and sipped. "Our goal was to bring the colonies to equal footing." At least that had been the goal of his own clan. They had never wanted to lord it over anyone else, to force their views on the rest of the world. They had only wanted equality and the right to live their lives as they chose. 

"But we aren't on equal footing," she countered, eyebrows drawing in slightly. "L2 is still struggling. Your colony is gone."

Difficult to argue with part of that. "My people were dying slowly and painfully. They used what was left of themselves to... make a statement." It would be infinitely possible to argue about L2; the people were still suffering, it was true, but most of that was due to the fact that they were the remains of the United States and as such had antiquated and literally ancient Opinions on a number of things that had led to their current state of being.

"From the nanites, yes. Did your people discover how they passed on to children?" The rude old man interrupted, and Wufei supposed he should have known who he was. Perhaps he had willfully forgotten.

"There were no children after the nanites." The answer was polite enough, and the best he could manage. "One of the things they did was to destroy all of the unborn children and any gametes remaining. Mostly, they turned on recessive health issues that rapidly became problematic."

"Mariemaia survived. She's the Barton family miracle." Yes, that made sense, now, and he no longer needed a formal introduction of the man, because Dekim Barton was a powerhouse of X18999, as much as Wufei detested politics.

"Why would anyone kill children?" Mariemaia asked, frowning.

"There is no reason to kill children, only some people are simply not very good people. We were considered dangerous; stubborn, and we wanted to be equal to everyone else. We wanted to live according to our own ideas and desires. For some, that is an unbearable notion. The Alliance was unfortunately made up of them, so for them perhaps it was easier to kill everyone and allow the rest of the universe to see how far they would like to go." She was definitely Treize's daughter. He could tell that much just looking at her. He wondered how it had come about. Not that the man seemed capable of limiting his affections if he were so moved. 

"We'll stop that," she said decisively.

"Perhaps," the Barton patriarch, who had outlived his murderous and not at all sadly assassinated son, interrupted, "We should go downstairs and visit your father, hmn? Before you go to bed."

Decisively, she set her cup and saucer on the table. "Yes, please. Would you like to come as well, Chang Wufei?"

Apparently he would be referred to by his full name until she decided otherwise. He didn't care. "Yes. Thank you."

"Excellent." Dekim clapped his hands together, and stood up. "I believe Colonel Kirill was going to bring your luggage down and set up a cot in that room."

The better to watch him, no doubt. "That is acceptable. Presumably you have something you wish me to do besides be seen."

"Mariemaia has been schooled in literature, language, and diplomacy, but we have not yet had the good fortune to teach her combat. I believe that should be your main task. And if you could manage to get General Khushrenada alert and perhaps walking..." Even better. Yes, he was going to be quite busy with that task set, and no way to signal back to home base that he needed to be extracted.

He would just have to wait. They would send Trowa when the time came. He would just need to have faith that his war comrades were still terrifyingly competent.

* * *

He had slept.

It did not come with a wash of white and pain and fear. It felt like the first time he had slept without having something overwritten, something broken inside of him in so long that he hardly wanted to come out of it. But there were human voices on the edges of his consciousness, and his throat was dry. He moved his right hand, and there wasn't a bone deep pain, a searing in his veins; only empty anticipation that it would start.

"He looks better." The voice of a child, high and sweet and young. He didn't open his eyes, because he was curious now. Who could it be?

"He does." Wufei. That was a relief, and so strange. He had wanted him, dreamed of him, hoped for him. And he had been certain that he had only imagined him.

Wufei and a child. That made no sense, because he was sure that he was still trapped in a hell which had not been of his own making, a spiraling painscape where, a few times, he'd imagined himself limbless and being fucked, which wasn't possible, wasn't at all true. He touched his hip over the sheets, felt thumb and bone edge at the same time, and then opened his eyes to what he hoped was something coherent. "Hello."

"Hello, Father."

Well. That was certainly a disconcerting greeting, he was sure of that much. The child was a girl, red hair, eyes much like his own, and Wufei was standing by her side. She looked nothing at all like Wufei or he would be having terrifying notions about what exactly might be possible given enough time and research.

He struggled to move a leg for a moment, trying to push himself more upright in the bed and failing to achieve muscle coordination. Not everything was listening to him, dammit. "Have we met before?"

She tilted her head to the side and looked at him. "Not as such." Her hand was promptly held out, more for a kiss than a shake, he thought. "I am Mariemaia Barton. Your daughter."

"Barton." He bypassed that because he didn't think he could manage the coordination for it, moved his good hand to rest on her shoulder in what felt like a triumph. "Leia Barton. I didn't know."

"Yes. I am aware. Look, I've brought you a present." Her palm turned upward, indicating Wufei. "He's going to help you feel better."

He was unsurprised by the arch of Wufei's eyebrow, but not at all surprised by the glance he gave toward the wall and the window there. Hm. Indicating something, indicating that they were being watched. Fine, let them watch. Let them watch and record whatever they liked. Let them broadcast it to the world, and see what happened. "I appreciate that." The painkillers had been stopped that afternoon, and he had slept, and it already felt like such a fragile gift. "How old are you?"

"I'll be ten come Michaelmas." She looked a great deal closer to eight. 

Leaning in, Wufei flipped up the edge of a sheet, settling it more comfortably, perhaps. "I'll be teaching her to fight. And getting you out of that bed."

That seemed insane to him. Ten, really? Had it all been that long? No, that didn't make sense, he hadn't even... Closer to seven seemed possible. "Wufei, what year is it?" he asked as calmly as possible.

"It's 198." That was disconcerting. "Not quite a third of the way through the year. You've been here for some time."

He looked between Wufei and the child, girl, his daughter, that would never make sense, never, and then settled his eyes on her. "Since you parried." Almost two and a half years. Two, the world had to have moved on, and that was good, that was what he had wanted. Wufei should have moved on, not... But he wanted him. It was such an odd relief to see him. "He is a very good fighter if you must learn. Why are you learning to fight?"

The expression on her face was so proud. "So that I can make your dream come true, Father."

The slight shake of Wufei's head was nearly imperceptible. "So that the colonies will have all of the opportunities you were hoping they might."

"They haven't?" He was getting mixed messages, and he needed... water, food, something, or perhaps it truly didn't make sense.

"We can talk about it later," Wufei offered. "Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

Mariemaia bit her lip. "It is quite late."

"And yet he has been sleeping and ill. Some accommodations must be made in such cases, surely."

Or perhaps not. It was awkward to ask that of a child, as if she were anything other than a brainwashed hostage in the situation. "Yes. I don't... know the last time I had either?"

"I'll ask Grandfather." She seemed uncertain, in any case, which likely didn't bode well.

Wufei inclined his head. "And you and I have only had tea, late though it was. Do you often go to bed without supper?" His voice lacked judgment but Treize was sure he had seen that look in his eyes before and it did not bode well. Shame he was too tired to do anything more about it.

"Sometimes."

Treize tsked immediately in response, unable to stop himself. "That won't do." They needed to find a way out immediately, it was the only thing he was sure of just then.

Yes, he knew the purse of those lips. "Well. We will perhaps make other arrangements, then. If your father is to become healthy again, he must have proper nutrition, as should a growing girl. Perhaps you can take your supper here and I will teach you about Nataku."

"Oh! Your Gundam!" That seemed to excite her in a way that, well, most young children were excited by Gundams, and he watched her as she moved away from the bed, and toward the door to badge herself out. He relaxed, letting his eyes focus on Wufei, and the ridiculous uniform he was wearing.

"Go ahead," Wufei told him. "Get it out of your system."

He tried to smile, and lifted his right hand unsteadily to pick at the funny little belt that ran from his shoulder. "What does that even do?"

"I don't know. I think perhaps they took a page out of the Hitler uniform guide for youths." For a second, Treize thought he'd continue to stand there, separate from him, too far away; he was proven wrong in the next second because Wufei climbed into the bed, clinging to him like an octopus. "I hate you," he lied.

He hadn't felt anything like that in too long, and clutched at Wufei, spreading the fingers of his good hand against his back. "I know." He smelled familiar, and it was that sense more than anything that told him it was real. He was in pain, and Wufei was very real.

"Two and a half years," he muttered against his shoulder. "Two. And a half. After you committed suicide by charging me. By all rights I ought to shoot you right here."

He turned his head, pressed his nose against the side of Wufei's head and just breathed. "Not sure I would mind. It's been..." Unimaginable, and the more alert he felt, the less willing he was to let his mind drift over any of it.

"Two and a half years," Wufei said again, and there was a weight to the statement, something that said he knew and understood that the actual stretch of time was strangely meaningless and yet also fraught with horrifying possibility. "Someone found a video of you. Online. Conspiracy theory bullshit, but I..."

"You came." He wanted to call him an idiot, but things were already looking up, stupid uniform and all, and things hadn't looked anything in a long time. Wufei was warm and familiar against him, and it was a relief, tugged at a visceral something with which he was struggling.

"Mmmm." Agreement, or something like it. "You reek of hospital and rubbing alcohol and a number of other disgusting smells. First thing once you're fed is finding a way to bathe you properly."

Treize laughed, and laughter was dangerously close to crying, to hitching in his chest, as he held onto Wufei. "You become accustomed after enough time, but yes."

"It will be all right." That sounded like a promise, and it made Treize shudder. "It will be fine. I'm going to get you moving again, I promise." There was an audible pause, and then Wufei leaned in as if to kiss his ear, breathed against it. "Don't worry. About anything."

"Not possible." But he clutched at Wufei, and let his eyes close and let himself pretend that he was anywhere else just then.

There came a series of beeps and Wufei let go of him, pushing himself to stand as the door opened and someone else dressed in the preposterous shorts entered with a hefty tray in hand. "I was told to fetch supper to you."

Wufei's chin tilted upwards as he watched the tray settle onto a side table. "I'd also like to review his medical records and get someone in to evaluate him and inform me of where things stand currently.”

The man frowned, and then he stepped close to the wall and pushed a hand against it. "There's a wash facility here, toilet. Cleaning supplies. I'll get the paperwork, but the nurse is off duty."

Thank fucking god, if there was a god left on earth.

"That's fine. I'll expect her first thing in the morning, so let Mr. Barton know that I will be unavailable until after we've met and gone over all of the necessary information." There was no indication that Wufei was even remotely willing to act as though they were captives despite the fact that they were. It seemed to irritate the other man if his scowl was anything to go by.

He had missed Wufei's imperiousness. He had missed everything if he were honest about it, and watched, tired but alert, as the guard turned and left. Locking them in, fine, but at least there was food and peace.

"Do you think you can feed yourself? And don't bother pretending, I saw how difficult it was when you didn't take your daughter's hand and laid it on her shoulder instead." Imperious, bossy; anyone would think Wufei had been the general for all of it.

What he had been was the Gundam pilot who followed whatever orders interested him, and no more or less. "I can try."

That narrow eyed glare was disconcerting. "I didn't say can you try. I said can you. Oh, never mind." Never mind because he was pulling covers off of the dishes and bringing one to the bedside, fork in hand. "Don't exhaust yourself before we even get a chance to bathe you."

"I think they took the feeding tube out yesterday. Vague memory of that." The food was simple, traditional L3, but it tasted good to have boring food that required chewing so he let his good hand drop to his side to rest for a moment.

"They were doing you more harm than good, and it's been going on a long time. I don't know if they have research on the full extent of things." Having a forkful of squash shoved into his mouth definitely wasn't helping the conversation.

He took his time chewing and swallowing, and it was another relief, something familiar to have again. "They knew enough."

"More than I'd like," Wufei agreed vaguely. "I'd tried to forget most of it, to be honest. The war. Some of the others went about peacekeeping as a profession. I thought I'd pick up a second degree in something unfamiliar."

"Tell me you didn't go into history." He was offered another forkful of squash and accepted it.

"I didn't go into history. Literature, actually. Pre-After Colony, as it were, mostly English since it was something to which I hadn't been overly exposed before for obvious reasons." Reaching down, he took another forkful of squash and put it in his own mouth this time, nose wrinkling. "Hm."

"It's good for you," Treize remarked, swallowing. He was going to sleep like the dead when he was done. "It's good to chew again. What school did you go to?"

"It's bland." Wufei's nose was still wrinkled, and he gave Treize more of the squash before taking a bite of the beans on the plate. "Oxford. I thought if I planned to study pre-After Colony literature, I might as well go to a place that was responsible for creating the writers I would be studying. Also," he added, shoulders shrugging, "I don't have any family. I don't have any obligations."

"You deserve a good life. You'll have to continue," he said after he swallowed. "Eventually. Soon."

That earned him a hum by way of answer. "Mmm. I think perhaps I've left that behind for now. Perhaps for a long time. We'll see." Another forkful, this time beans. "You're eating well for a man who's just had a feeding tube removed. I expect your recovery will be swifter than anyone thought it might be."

He chewed with determination, though he was feeling exhausted. Still, the promise of a wash was tempting. "They kept the painkillers high on purpose."

"An unconscious general is undoubtedly a more malleable one. Tell me when you've had enough and I'll let you rest before we bother bathing you. At least they've kept you shaved."

He managed a rakish smile after a couple more bites of squash. "I look terrible with a beard. There are stories. I'll tell them to you sometime." But he was tired and he felt better. Perhaps it was best to stop while he was ahead.

Wufei snorted. "I can only imagine. I can't grow a proper one. Well, sort of. A mustache, but it looks frankly ridiculous, so what's the point in bothering? There isn't one. Are you done?"

“Yes." He moved his good hand to trace the edge of Wufei's jaw, a loose motion. "Trying to imagine you with a mustache."

Wufei snorted. "Stop trying, it's ridiculous. Plus you look exhausted." His face was warm to the touch, and it felt good. "Rest. I'll finish eating and then we'll try and get you into a bath."

He nodded agreement, and closed his eyes, letting his hand come back down. There were ridiculous things he wanted to say, that Wufei shouldn't have come, that they should have let him die, but he was so grateful for the pain to ease, to have clarity, that none of it came near his lips. Instead, he dozed.

When he woke, it was to familiar hands, gentle and easy, pulling off the horrifying hospital johnny. His thoughts were muzzy and absent, and he hummed, an unspoken question that went mostly ignored so he didn't bother pulling himself further toward consciousness until he felt lips against his temple. "Time to wake up, sleeping beauty. I don't think I can move you without assistance."

It was damn near heavenly, and he didn't want to open his eyes and lose that moment, though he had to. "Mmmh." He wasn't sure Wufei could move him without assistance.

"Come on. Wake up." A hand patted his face, getting his attention. "I can't imagine that they've done more than bed bathe you as much as possible, and I know you'll be dying of delight once you're in the tub. It's a strange sort of thing, but I think we'll have it figured out in short order."

He took a slow breath, and then exhaled through his nose, and made himself open his eyes. "I am with you." This time, now, and struggling for a moment to see what limbs and parts of himself were responding, and what wasn't. There was pain, and it made him cringe or flinch as he tried to sit upright more, but it wasn't that fire, that agony that sheeted through him.

"So you say." He supposed he should have expected that response, but the tiny quirk of Wufei's mouth said as much as anything that he wasn't out of patience yet. "There's a wheeled stool of a sort. It was tucked into the bathroom, and there's a walk-in tub. I think we can manage, yes?"

"The last time I stood up was Earth." And there was a sense memory that he didn't like; he knew it was possibly true, but there was no way. Who could survive that? 

He managed to bend a knee slightly under the sheet, and it just didn't bode well. "Mmm. Come on. Arm around my shoulder, that one, yes. Like so." Wufei's arm was tucked under his own, hand firm on his back as he pulled Treize to sitting. The room spun alarmingly for a moment before it settled back into something like normal, although quite far from it. "There you are. Sitting up has to be an improvement. If it isn't, I suppose you can go back to sleep, but I think you'll feel immensely better once you're properly clean."

His back felt like fire just for a moment, like his body was remembering how things were supposed to move, how they were supposed to connect and relate. "We'll try." His good hand clutched at Wufei, trying to steady himself as he sat there for a moment, breathing and feeling and trying not to feel.

"The nanites will make up for it," Wufei muttered. "Surely. They seem to have made up for a lot else." For some reason, his gaze skittered over the left side of Treize's face before glancing down.

"How bad is it?" He hadn't asked, wasn't even concerned, but he didn't have to look at himself every day. He hadn't felt clarity in a long time, since he'd been making insane demands for Zechs to surrender.

Dark eyes blinked at him. "I think that you'll be shocked when you see yourself in the mirror and you look perfectly like yourself. I certainly was. Now, here." The wheeled contraption looked like something an old man would use, and Treize frowned at it slightly. "We're going to stand and turn and you're going to sit."

He looked down at his legs, mostly unresponsive as they were, as if he were seeing them for the first time. That was new, and old, and yet recently new, and he did have a sharp snapshot of sense memory of gore there, and bandages, and tubes and agony, not naked skin and his dick lying soft against his thigh. "I'm going to be sick."

How Wufei managed it, he couldn't guess, because he didn't let go of him at all and yet there was a bin in front of him and he could let go of all of it.

Treize wished he hadn't, but squash was rather innocuous coming back up, and there hadn't been much of it, though his mouth burned as he leaned back precariously. "S-sorry, dissonance. Wasn't. That's new."

"Mmm." That hum was an acknowledgment more than anything. "I'll tell them that breakfast must be bland, and in the morning we'll try bathing before food. I don't think you're up to it now."

He tried to lift his left hand since the right was occupied holding onto Wufei to keep himself steady, but it spasmed at the wrist and didn't quite play along. "In for a penny, in for a pound."

Something about the snort that earned him was comforting. "I suppose if I had any expectations, they would have included you demanding to be bathed. Well. All right. If you think you aren't going to vomit again."

"Should be fine." Having legs wasn't a horrifying revelation, or at least it shouldn't have been, so he could swallow and suppress and let Wufei guide him down from the edge of the bed to put weight on his feet.

"Just a quick turn and onto the seat. Got it?" And before he could either agree or disagree, Wufei had him up, had him twisted, and had him in the seat, almost as if he had done it before. It was a little surprising. "There you go. Is anything hurting more than it should?"

"No." His legs, his hips, felt like someone was pouring acid over his bones, so his voice seized a little when he said it. "Perfectly... understandable."

Maybe that snort of breath wasn't so comforting. "And I thought I was the masochist between us. Right, then. Advise if it's more than you can bear, and if I need to put you back into the bed. I'm working on the theory that once the pain meds are out of your system, things will ramp up in an effort to correct issues."

"Excellent theory." One he believed deeply, but he didn't protest. He didn't look down again, either, but straight at Wufei because it was a much more heartening sight.

Stepping behind him, Wufei began to push, and the seat wheeled along slowly. "All right. Just... shuffle a bit and we'll get there in your own good time." 

They did, scooting him forward into the bathroom, and to a strange tub with a door in the side. "Concerned what measures they may take now." He would be functional in the walking world in a few days, he had no doubt. And then what? Together they were well over twice the risk. There had to be another part of the plan.

"Mmm. Don't worry about it yet." Might as well tell a meteorologist not to fret about an oncoming hurricane. "No. Quite literally. That's for worrying about later. For now, worry about keeping down breakfast and getting clean. One thing at a time, General Khushrenada. I realize that you aren't well-equipped for worrying about only one thing and not a dozen, but try it all the same."

He did snort as Wufei once again manhandled him, to some pain, though the door of the tub and onto a wide molded seat. "Doesn't make the dozen go away." No, but he could let it go because he was exhausted.

"Probably not," Wufei agreed, beginning to strip off bits of his own ridiculous uniform. He wasn't sure who had made any of those choices, but they were terrible.

Watching Wufei undress made it easier to let go of the dozen items his mind was trying to solve, questions he would have to answer and deal with at a later time. He was beautiful as he shed the tie and the shirt and toed out of the shoes. After Wufei had left, he had known what path they were both on, and such a sight was never to occur again.

Broad shoulders shrugged. "I thought we might as well both get clean at the same time. I expect that I can wash you better if I'm actually in the tub considering the depth of it."

"I don't require an excuse." He smiled at Wufei, and no doubt failed to imbue it with the appropriate imperiousness, but it was enough to get a response from Wufei.

One finger pointed at him. "No, you require discouragement most of the time." He did away with the rest of his clothing and stepped in, closing the door on the tub and then began fiddling with the controls. Fortunately, it was rather large and there would be room for both of them, which was good because he didn't have the energy to do more than sit on the chair that was built into it while remaining upright. The pain from his hips and his legs made him want to squirm, but he didn't quite have the coordination for it so it sat there, an unsatisfied irritation as the water started to rise.

"I had a chance to look over your records while you were sleeping and verified a few things." Wufei settled close by him, not on the ledge, just kneeling carefully while the water ran. "You are very lucky that someone reprogrammed those nanites. I shouldn't like to think what would have happened if you had not."

He didn't need to kneel, so it was an awkward angle when someone had an urge to touch. "I reprogrammed them." Treize would've been proud of that a few years ago, but in the moment he felt less so.

"All by yourself?" It was strange, now, having Wufei look up at him. Not at all like it had been before, when it had been a delight. "Hm. I would like to take a look at it sometime. They haven't got a good grasp of it here or they'd have been mining you for them. I expect that the good Doktors were the only one with the knowledge to have done that, and they've made themselves scarce post-war."

Now he was unsteady and uncomfortable, deeply in pain and confused. Maybe a little desperate, he'd never been skilled at identifying his emotions. "Yes, all by myself. It was fix them or be executed, and that was a compelling choice at the time." As the hot water came up around his calves, everything started to hurt less, and he dropped a hand to Wufei's shoulder. "Come up here, this is awkward."

"I'll be up in a moment." He snagged a flannel and a bar of soap, dipping them into the water and lathering before lifting Treize's foot and beginning to wash. "Think of it as... hm. Think of it as you like. Whatever makes you happy."

"I promise to do this for you when we get out of here." He couldn't tell what was going through Wufei's mind, but he could guess as someone who had used the other man as a tool of still unexpected -- though he'd been warned -- suicide.

There was something about the glance that earned him. "Yes, well. When you can walk about on your own, we'll revisit it." He switched to the other foot and leg, washing carefully as the water continued to rise. From where he was kneeling, it was getting close to his chest because it was rising closer to his seat now.

"They usually require stimulus to get going. Like pain. Not sure what it says about their original programming.”

Wufei's eyes rose, and so did he, standing in front of him, wet and as beautiful as he had been so long ago. "Laoshi is in isolation of his own choice," he advised idly. "Doubtless we can discover all sorts of interesting things. Would you like me to tell you what I know or would you rather wait?"

He dropped his right hand to Wufei's hip, head tilted back slightly to look at him. His chest ached because Wufei had been the first person he had wanted to see, had kept opening his eyes and kept not seeing. "I owe you an apology, not more questions."

"You do. I cried, you know." The water was hip deep and he turned away for a moment, flicking off the cold water and letting the hot run a bit longer. It felt amazing, and the ache in his lower limbs was significantly better. "I cried, and even before that I tortured myself and I _missed_ you and I hated every second of it. I knew it was coming even if ZERO and Epyon didn't give me the absolute specifics. And afterwards, I thought about history, or anything else, but ancient literature was the one place I could count on at least no one bringing in photos of you." His mouth quirked. "Mostly."

"You'll have to tell me that story sometime. It wasn't _Hitchhiker's Guide_ , was it? No, that's not ancient yet. I didn't even enjoy the Greeks. Christ, I've been eulogized and no one even got it right." He tugged at Wufei, not hard because he couldn't muster it, but he wanted the contact more than the easier words that came out of his mouth.

He settled, not on Treize's lap, but to the side, legs over his. The water was almost too warm, and so he leaned forward and turned it off finally. "Oh, good heavens, no. Well. There's ancient and then there's ancient, I suppose. No, it was the nineteenth and twentieth century course, naturally. You don't want to contemplate their notions about you, to be perfectly honest."

Treize had to count for a moment to remember what years were in the twentieth. "That was a good time for books. Particularly after the world wars." He shifted, wrapping an arm around Wufei, enjoying the contact and the fact that his left side was starting to come back to life slowly with painful pins and needles that made him flinch occasionally. "Were you happy?"

"Mmmm. I even took a lover. Or two." The flannel was re-soaped and Wufei worked at washing him. "All right. Just the one. I have a type. Smart, occasionally flippant. Feisty."

"I'm sorry you left him." But not enough to push Wufei away, because that was idiocy. He leaned into him a little, instead, felt the pliable warm of his body, so familiar.

"Are you?" The scrubbing felt delightful. He couldn't remember anything feeling so good in a very long time. "I doubt it. And he led me to you, in point of fact. Probably a plant in his afternoon lab meant to get me here."

"I'm sorry for him that you left him, in an academic sense," he amended. "So you came knowing it was a trap." He was grateful for it, without question. A groan escaped him because it felt that damn good.

God, yes. The fingers massaging his neck made him hum, verging on a moan. If everything didn't ache unpleasantly, he'd be well on his way to enjoying a thorough shag. "Yes. Meredith was quite understanding." He washed under Treize's arm thoroughly. "And he is terrifyingly bright. He knew what I was, but he's... he's not a fighter. Well. Not the kind of fighter you and I have been."

"No one should need to be that kind of fighter." He had hoped they were in a world where literature could be studied, and that no one would need men like them anymore. That the destruction of it had been so overwhelming that it was burned out of humanity for fifty or sixty years. He couldn't count on any longer than that, if he were lucky. Humans seemed always to find a reason to fight about something.

Water sluiced over his chest and arms, over his shoulders. "Mm. It's a lot to see, and a lot to live through. I expect everyone needed an extraordinary amount of therapy when they were done, and no one got any." That seemed to be a fairly legitimate observation, Treize thought. _Therapy_ was a dirty word sometimes.

"Have you pursued any?" It was hard not to smile a little, to close his eyes for a moment and enjoy the warm water pouring over his skin from Wufei's hands. Wufei's hands on him, lingering over strange notches of scars and patches that didn't quite seem entirely right, that he couldn't quite properly remember. 

"Oh, I had many better reasons for it, on the whole." He'd seen his entire colony explode before his eyes, undoubtedly that was true. It still didn't answer the question. "How are you feeling?"

So many options. Alive was a correct answer that brooked no arguments, because 'fine' was absolutely a lie. "In pain, but alert. Better."

"How bad is the pain?" It wasn't as if anything could be done about it, but then Wufei began pushing and prodding at him gently, thumbs pressing tightly into some of the places.

There was nothing to do but hope he could sleep through it. It was why after a bad atmosphere break, he'd take himself off and drink, and miss the worst of it. "Uhmh, eight out of ten. What is that?"

Wufei shrugged. "When we're out again, I'll try a few massage techniques. Maybe it will at least help you sleep through the night."

"You need to rest as well." It was just a relief to feel anything other than confusion and pain, and he didn't want to let his mind dwell too hard on that, as he stroked his good hand idly against Wufei's back, half clutching. "Thank you."

"Hm." Not a reply, precisely. "Don't worry. I'll rest. After all, I know exactly where you are and what you're doing." He caught a frown. "That sounds a bit stalkery."

He leaned into Wufei, and pressed his forehead against the side of his temple. "You've had a habit of finding where I'm hiding. It's not a terrible trend."

"I seem to have a knack for it. Time to get out of the tub, I think. You can get some rest and we can face whatever comes tomorrow with a fresh face."

Yes. Yes, that sounded quite good, especially since he was exhausted after all of today. Exhausted and exhilarated and finally, finally, present and human and real.

Tomorrow was, after all, a new day, and as good a start to the rest of his life as any.

* * *

Treize slept heavily once he was ensconced in the horrible hospital bed again, and he only drifted out in conversation once in a way that reminded Wufei of his own molasses moments with his nanites, like a normal person's petite mal seizure. He had moved his own cot up against the right side of bed, between Treize and the fake window that was some sort of viewing system, and had slept decently for being a hostage because Treize was alive, despite all the odds.

There was something about him that was supremely settling. If Wufei were more paranoid, he would worry about it. Thank god he was comfortable with his own emotions. Treize had asked if he'd been in therapy, but Wufei's colony had been expecting to have to sacrifice themselves at some point for as long as he could remember. He was expected to outlive them, and they had prepared him for it for as long as he could remember. Therapy was the least of it.

Readiness was the better word, though it had still hurt, had still enraged him, it had subsided to an ache he could live with. That made it easier for him to deal with everything that was going on in their world.

He wasn't sure how Treize was managing, except that it sounded as if everything had been insane for him forever, so what was new? Wufei could only guess that he was probably a complete disaster under that serene, controlled face, because his idea of a fun time when under house arrest and duress was to build a Gundam with a modified Ancient system. It was going to be a long week or four getting him moving because he'd have to keep him from exploding into insane action in order to keep himself occupied. For now he was sleeping, a heavy sleep, propped up with pillows as if it mattered. Wufei needed to see to the basics -- clothes, because that gown wasn't going to do and was still on the floor where it belonged from the night before -- and food.

Stretching, he shoved a hand through his messy hair, puffed up in little snarls at the back of his head, and rolled out of the cot. He'd been surprised that it wasn't just a stretch of cloth between two poles, but had instead been a strange sort of chair that unfolded into a bed. He'd slept in much worse places. The older he got, the more reluctant he found himself when it came to things like sleeping propped against a wall in a metal folding chair for some reason. It left him tired; he supposed there was more of that to look forward to as he got older. He stretched, went to the bathroom, and considered his options -- wake up Treize or beat on the door and try to get some attention.

Rolling a thumb along his jaw, he felt the vague prickle of stubble; his beard never grew out quickly, thank god, but Treize would probably be in need sooner. He would have to do something about that, too. Obviously someone had been shaving him, so he would riffle around until he found a razor after breakfast.

Surprisingly enough, he heard the slide of the door and he abandoned his plan to brush his teeth in order to see who had entered. The woman, obviously a nurse because she was dressed like one, came into the room with a tray containing plates of food on the top level and what looked to be medical supplies on the bottom level. "Good morning, I was told you'll be staying with us."

"Yes, and I have a number of questions. Presumably you've been told to answer them; if not, then I'll need to see to that. I've glanced through the medical records that have been maintained, but I would prefer it if you told me what you've observed." And also handed over those plates. Treize thus far seemed to be sleeping heavily, which was probably for the best.

"It's a very long story at this point." Her expression was tight. "When we set up this rudimentary little clinical facility, the patient was very nearly dead and his heart had to be shocked back into rhythm multiple times. We had a doctor on staff at the time, four of them, actually, but a great deal of the cauterization work had been done before he came here."

Perhaps breakfast wasn't actually a good idea. "Cauterization?" He didn't want to know; he needed to, though, and so he steeled himself for it, hoping he could keep his face from edging into horror.

"Both femoral and axillary arteries, everything else that was bleeding. The scavengers had cauterized all of it to keep him from bleeding out. The rest was stuffed with gauze wrapped in bandages and we had to figure out how to fix it. There was about sixty percent less of the general two years ago then there is now."

So. He hadn't been wrong when he guessed that he might have been found by scavengers, at least that was a thought upon which to fixate for now. "He was missing his limbs," Wufei stated, and his mouth felt strange and numb with the presence of those words. "What else?"

"Left eye, part of the left side of his face. There was burning all down the left side that seemed to impact his breathing. He was semi conscious or seizing for about three months after the first four. Damage to the pelvic region, more burning. One could guess the shape of the cockpit he was seated in and the harness that held him to it from the burns, but those have healed now as you can tell. For the past six months or so we've been attempting to keep his pain under control. He's broken his jaw at least once and several teeth. More than once, either from seizing or the pain. And then the little creatures in his bloodstream just rebuild him." She sounded like she was greatly disturbed by it, and who wouldn't be? "Every vitamin supplement known to man has been pumped through him, every mineral supplement. I don't know what they do with it. At one point he seemed to be coming down with scurvy which is when we started the supplementation. He will need to allow us to put the IV back in."

Wufei shook his head immediately. "No. The pain prompts the rebuilding, you've been slowing things down. If he needs vitamin supplementation, better that we do it orally for now and see what happens." He could see that she wanted to argue with him, wanted to ask what he could possibly know that she didn't. "I've worked with them before." Flat, and he tilted his chin, mouth set, eyes narrowed. "Then if I am wrong we'll try another suggestion, but for now, no. Is that his breakfast?"

"Yes, and yours." She moved to wake him, but the gown on the floor caught her eyes, and the lack of bandaging.

His tongue darted out, licked at his upper lip. "And when you left yesterday, please tell me what was still ongoing."

"We had taken out the feeding tube. His left side still seemed to be paralyzed. He had been crying again. There were some small open wounds we had been keeping wrapped to prevent infection. He was still mostly blind in his left eye, though he was hard to get a coherent response out of."

" _He_ is tired of third person," Treize mumbled, pulling at the sheet with his right hand.

"I expect he is," Wufei replied simply and turned, settling on the edge of the bed. "Are you in fact mostly blind in your left eye?"

The question forced Treize to open his eyes, slowly, and with it trying to push himself more upright, the gesture was quite a bit short of imperious. He closed his right eye and the left eye moved, glancing around. "Mm, yes. Unfortunately."

"Are you implying that I am not a delight to see at this time of morning?" He sounded sour, but he was a great deal more amused. "And how is the rest of your left side?"

He looked at Wufei with both eyes and tried to flex his left leg to push himself more upright but it didn't seem to help much. All Wufei saw was the same bare sort of movement that was all he had been able to manage the night before. "A work in progress, I think."

Humming, he slid his gaze to the nurse, who seemed surprised. "But you managed to move around enough to get into the bath last night. Imagine what might occur in two weeks."

"Without painkillers. We thought..."

"I tried to tell you," Treize said, more calmly than she probably deserved. He finally used his right hand to get himself settled comfortably, though he was still very naked beneath the sheet. In the rather harsh lighting, Wufei could see the suggestions of scarring, the faint difference of texture even on his left cheek. It was subtle, though, very subtle, better than the scarring had been on his back when they had been in Luxembourg. "I believe I need clothes, at long last."

"If you wouldn't mind." Wufei tacked it on as if it were an afterthought. "Pajamas at the very least, because I sincerely doubt you're going to be wandering around today, in any case. And in the meantime..." Wufei snagged a plate and settled one in Treize's lap. "Do you think you can manage?"

"Better than yesterday, I think," he agreed, reaching unsteadily for a fork from Wufei's hand. It was best to let him work through it; it might give the nanites an idea of what needed to be brought up to snuff.

The nurse's face was a study in confusion as she stared alternately at Treize, and then Wufei, and then the medical supplies on the lower tier. He supposed it must have been confusing enough. If Treize couldn't have been in worse shape the day before and had been covered in bandages -- and he had no reason to believe that wasn't true -- he supposed he could sympathize with the look on her face. "Pajamas," he prompted again.

"Pajamas," she repeated, staring at his chest, stomach and arms, and Wufei wasn't sure what she was or wasn't seeing, but she nodded and backed away to let herself out. 

Treize ate a bite of rubbery scrambled eggs, fork lingering in his mouth for a moment.

"So." Wufei said, grasping his own plate and beginning to poke his fork at it. "What shall we do today? Strengthening your left side should be on the list, but nothing too strenuous, I think. Better that we do easy things and see if the nanites pick up on the cues."

"Functional things, I think. Always seemed to work the best, I've never really done proper physical therapy with them." He seemed very pleased with the rather dull tasting eggs.

Probably not, but Wufei was fairly certain that he had never grown back his arms and legs again, either. Something about that fact that made his own eggs less appealing. There was fresh fruit, though, and toast, so he poked his fork into a grape with a satisfying little pop of pressure and put it into his mouth.

"I'm struggling with..." He used the side of his fork to unsteadily cut a piece of toast. "Memories are the wrong word, but yes. Dissonance. I think I've been conscious many more times before this since the war."

Reaching over, Wufei used his fingers and ripped Treize's toast into multiple pieces. "Tell me what you remember, then." Hopefully without horrifying details, but the worst that would happen would be his own utter inability to eat and him feeding it to Treize instead.

The man could clearly use it. He stabbed a piece of toast with the fork, though, and ate it before he gave an answer. "I remember when everything was broken and wrong. Or missing. And still bleeding. I remember there was a girl, and a woman, or..." He grimaced. "Maybe my hospital visits are blurring together, but I vaguely recall now how I have a daughter."

"Did you know? Before, I mean." He did wonder. There were a number of things they had not discussed when they had originally spent time together.

"No." The edge of his mouth quirked a little as he ate another piece of toast. "Her mother might have been a nurse when I crashed here in L3 before. I was completely out of my head the entire time."

"Eggs?" Wufei offered, pushing them to the side as he continued eating his fruit. The protein couldn't hurt and would probably help. "She is quite something, from what I can tell. Not quite to your degree of sheer underhanded planning yet, unfortunately."

"She's young." He ate another fork full of eggs, and another, and then slowed. "And she's not at a military academy."

Wufei's sidelong glance was full of interest. "Are you feeling unwell?"

"Giving it a moment." That was a yes, from the way he grimaced, and then it seemed to pass.

Wufei nodded and settled his plate in the cot-chair, standing and frowning at his bag. "I'm going to brush my teeth and leave you to eat breakfast. I feel sure that there'll be more of the ridiculous shorts to come when they bring pajamas for you." He disliked them. They made him feel preposterous, and they were not necessarily comfortable.

"I've never worn shorts and I'll find a way to light them on fire if they try," Treize said, prodding at his eggs. It was a peaceful and easy silence, a comfortable pattern into which to fall. Treize picked steadily through his food, and Wufei took care of basic bodily processes while knowing he needed to do the same to help Treize when he was done. There was an electric razor in the bathroom when Wufei rummaged it as well as other toiletries.

At least no one would learn how patchy his beard was.

Once he was dressed in his own clothing, leaving the uniform where it laid upon the bathroom floor, he returned to the bedroom, the razor in hand. "You've grown prickly overnight. I'll do something about it, whenever you tell me you feel well enough."

"I think I need the bathroom first," he remarked, setting the plate aside a bit unsteadily on the tray. He managed to lean forward slightly to do it, which was a great improvement on the day before. "And then I'll let you de-prickle me."

If anyone else had said such a thing in the state Treize happened to be in, Wufei was sure it would have sounded less dirty. "Shall I bring back the wheeled seat?"

At least he looked like he was thinking about an answer, and then attempted to turn and move to sit on the edge of the hospital bed. "Unfortunately yes. It hasn't been that miraculous a night." His left leg still seemed to be mostly unresponsive while his right leg was at least making a valiant effort. "You're very skilled with it."

One shoulder shrugged as he fetched the device and moved to the side of the bed to assist. "My grandmother on my father's side had one and required assistance sometimes. Arthritis. It isn't that difficult, all told." She had been fortunate and had died before the attack on L5. "You're better than when I first saw you yesterday."

"The painkillers were making everything worse, so much worse. And the thought of having legs again doesn't make me want to vomit so today is looking up." That had to have been the dissonance, the weird moment from the night before, and it was hard for Wufei to consider, not the man sitting on the edge of a hospital bed looking chipper by comparison to the night before had been cognizant enough of his injuries over the past two years for improvement to be disturbing and upsetting.

Once Treize was settled, Wufei pushed lightly and was unsurprised when Treize's right leg did more of the work than the night before. "Mmm, the idea of you without them nauseates me instead as it was my doing."

"I'd become... resigned. And then there was no reason to be resigned," he commented. "Everything is fine, or it will be soon." And then, and then. He could almost feel the future wheels in Treize's mind starting to turn again.

It was a welcome relief. "Do you need help pissing or?" 

Treize, naked on a wheeled chair with one leg not playing along, had the tenacity to shoot him a wicked smile. "I'm sure I can manage, but if the offer isn't altruistic..."

He was definitely Treize, there was no question, and Wufei laughed, unable to stop himself. "Piss," he said. "Then brush your teeth and perhaps I'll give you precisely what you want."

He gave a quiet chuckle in acknowledgment, maybe of the absurdity of it all, and managed to get forward enough to piss into the bowl without making a mess. And then he managed to get to the sink to wash his hands and brush his teeth, expression oddly relieved. "Feels stupidly good to do this," he announced around the toothbrush.

"Mmm, if you're lucky, the nanites will correct everything quickly," Wufei agreed, dampening a cloth with warm water and beginning to wipe Treize clean He started with his shoulders and worked his way down. "If I need to offer incentives, well."

"To the nanites?" Treize lifted an eyebrow and leaned forward to spit into the sink. "I'm unsure if they can be bribed. I can certainly be bribed but haven't even clothes to offer..."

"Yes, to the nanites." He tried to keep his expression deliberately blank. "I'll continue offering up protein to see what will happen."

Treize rinsed his mouth with water, and then drank a little tap water from his hand, and looked to be trying not to laugh, struggling to keep a straight face as he finally looked over his shoulder at Wufei, who raised a single eyebrow and tilted his head.

"It probably isn't wise, all things considered." Then again, had they ever chosen wisely? Either of them? He rather doubted it.

"Perhaps another day or two." He leaned back, still watching Wufei intently as if he could see just fine from both eyes when Wufei knew it was a lie. "I missed it. It probably needs a functional test as well."

There was no helping the smile, no way to keep his mouth from curving upwards or the amusement that was undoubtedly creasing the corners of his eyes. "A couple of days," he offered. "And I'll make you glad to see me."

"I was already delighted to see you." He pushed around the chair, got himself turned back to head to the door. "You might believe me more with clothes on, though, and I suspect she'll be back soon."

"Mmm, probably before you can get out of here. Not that you have anything to be ashamed of, but you might prefer not to be outright naked in front of her." It was doubtful; Treize had never been shy.

He shrugged his shoulders a little, because he truly wasn't concerned with it; there wasn't even a suggestion of shame. "She's been changing my bandages for over two years now. I think she's seen more of me than I have."

Wufei didn't doubt that, and he decided not to think about it, either. God alone knew how many things he did not want to contemplate. "Fine, then. I'll go straighten the sheets, shall I?" Let him try to get himself back without assistance if he thought he could. Perhaps that wasn't the best of ideas, but it wasn't as though he were any sort of expert about the medical situation. Perhaps Dekim's idea of him getting Treize out of bed was more about getting him into it, who knew.

He'd be able to quickly see if the man could scoot the chair back to the side of the bed, though Wufei was fairly sure the transition would be more of a challenge than scooting around had been. "Perhaps I could install lights on this. A horn, maybe. Saddest motorcycle I've ever been on." It was slow going, but Treize was stubborn. The effort was starting to make his skin flush red, so it was time to intervene.

"Stay there for just a moment." He doubted he'd get far with orders, but he was straightening the sheets, plates neatly piled to the side, crumbs shaken out. "I wonder if there are fresh sheets here."

"Unless there are other hidden doors, I doubt it." It wasn't as if he could go anywhere, but Wufei could see the man's right leg flex as if he were testing it for potential one legged hopping. He didn't try to get up, so at least he seemed to be paying attention.

Seemed to be. "Let me check the other room. Perhaps there were some beneath the towels."

There was a quiet hum of assent, and he went back into the bathroom to give the place a through search. He did have more soap and body wash, lotion, which would be useful. When he came back, Treize seemed to be dozing in the chair. Thank god he'd at least not tried anything while he was gone, and he had managed to find a fresh set of sheets beneath the towels after all.

Quickly enough, Wufei had the sheets changed and the others tossed to the floor. It wasn't as if it were difficult, in any case, and he was satisfied with it. He probably should have tried it last night, but it had seemed like too much effort after such a long day.

For now there seemed to be no time pressure, and he could make sure it was done properly before laying a hand at the back of Treize's neck to ease him awake enough to get back into the bed. "Hmn, I'm here."

"We're both here." Yes, and things were going to get better. They were, he just had to believe it enough. It was only his second day in the below of L3. In another twelve, someone would come and look for them. There was a time limit on being trapped there, so he was going to take the time to make sure that Treize was capable of keeping up, and that meant keeping the painkillers away from him and letting him rest while working out what was going on in the strange underworld of X18999.

He was going to have a very busy two weeks.


End file.
